fear

Q. How can the terrible fear of death be overcome? | Sri Ramana Maharshi

~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

A visitor asks Sri Ramana Maharshi:

Visitor: How can the terrible fear of death be overcome?

Bhagavan: When does that fear seize you? Does it come when you do not see your body, say, in dreamless sleep, or when you are under chloroform?

It haunts you only when you are fully “awake” and perceive the world, including your body. If you do not see these and remain your pure self, as in dreamless sleep, no fear can touch you.

If you trace this fear to the object, the loss of which gives rise to it, you will find that that object is not the body, but the mind which functions in it and through which the environment and the attractive world is known as sights, sounds, smells, etc.

Many a man would be too glad to be rid of his diseased body and all the problems and inconvenience it creates for him if continued awareness were vouchsafed to him.

It is the awareness, the consciousness, and not the body, he fears to lose.

Men love existence because it is eternal awareness, which is their own Self.

Why not then hold on to the pure awareness right now, while in the body and be free from all fear?

– Sri Ramana Maharshi, GURU RAMANA, Part 2, Talks

Intense fear during meditation, when staying with the I AM

~ Tom Das ~ 1 Comment

Dealing with deep layers of fear and conditioning

Q: Sometimes when my meditation becomes very deep and I stay with the I Am, there comes a sense of the whole world becoming very dark together with a sense of losing myself into something really bad and dark. My body starts to react strongly as well, and it feels like some kind of primal fear arising.

This video was recorded live during a Satsang meeting with Tom Das and put together by volunteers.

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Is it possible to free the mind from all fear and conditioning?

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Question: The human mind has been conditioned and brainwashed for thousands of years. Is it possible to free the mind of all psychological fear, and what is the brain’s primary function besides keeping the body alive?

Tom: We could say that there is always an aspect of the mind/ consciousness/ awareness/ ourselves that is untouched by conditioning. This awareness can at times see this conditioning you speak of in action, and then immediately it is already beyond it, and action from ‘this place’ is no longer egoically conditioned, although other types of conditioning such as biological conditioning and language skills remain.

This awareness-wisdom can grow and eventually efface the egoic conditioning completely, which is when we enter into the depths of Silence that is Timeless and Non-dual.

Even though all of this is already ‘That’, it is not fully ‘realised’ and suffering continues until the egoic conditioning is no longer active.